THE FARMSTEAD BEAUTIFUL 



than others, but all your rooms should be 

 for you and your family. The habit of 

 crowding the whole family life into the 

 kitchen is vulgarizing in the extreme. 



As far as possible avoid paint for interior 

 wood work. Natural wood, if neatly fin- 

 ished, is more beautiful and in the end 

 cheaper. On the other hand, when plas- 

 tered walls need something beyond neat 

 hard finish, it is in most cases better to use 

 paint than paper. 



Have ample light in every room. Many 

 builders love darkness rather than light. 

 Their architecture and esthetic deeds are 

 evil. Light is the best adornment possible, 

 basal to all the others, none of which will 

 show to the best advantage in chiaroscuro. 

 It is easy to drape a window so as to keep 

 out too much light, a thing we need to do 

 rather often in these prairie states where we 

 have sunshine to burn ; but it is not easy to 

 enlarge a window once made or to tunnel 

 the wall for a new one. The lighter your 

 room is from out-of-doors the darker its 

 walls and furnishings may be; the darker it 



17 



